Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to CW and the Arrow writers, not me.

WARNING: Strong language and adult themes, but nothing too graphic. For now.

All Roads Since You Are Wrong Directions (I'll Never Get Home)

~An Olicity Story~

Part II

-Repercussions-

(n.) an unintended consequence occurring some time after an event or action, especially an unwelcome one

There was something about the break of dawn that always appealed to Felicity. There was always a certain calm that came with it, what felt like a deep exhale after holding one's breath through the night. It soothed her and always gave her some sense of peace, because it was a new day and there was no telling where it was going to go.

But at this moment she wasn't sure if the cleansing effect of dawn would be enough to be able to assuage the hand that the city was dealt last night.

Tommy and her didn't linger in the basement, for their safety and for the fact that they really did not know where to go from there. Their emotions were running high and now that they have managed to reach some clarity, they had no idea where to go next.

All Felicity knew was that she was tired and that after she wakes up she will have to face the facts and find a way to move forward from the consequences of last night's activities and she had to be well rested to be able to handle that. But she did know that she couldn't just leave Tommy alone.

She spared a glance at the man a few feet away from her. His dark hair was covered with dust and had bits of debris on it. His blue eyes were dull and scrounged up with a distressing uncertainty in them. He looked worn down and beaten without any idea where to go. Just a lost boy who found himself suddenly thrown off of Neverland.

"I don't think Merlyn Manor is the best place to be right now." His eyes snapped up to hers, surprise taking over his face. "If that's where you're even staying right now. For all I know you have your own place, or hell your own building. Probably a penthouse or two. I mean you can afford it. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Crap. Three...Two...One...What I mean is that it takes a lesser hacker or anyone determined enough really to find your address, any of them. And a hotel can only keep your secret for a day or two at the most before the press can find you."

The gravity of the tail end of her ramble was enough to bring the bemused grin from his face to fall down at the warning.

"I have a spare room. It's not much. But it should do for a few days." She nodded at him, not giving him much time to answer.

It wasn't a request or an invitation, it was a demand, leaving no room for argument as she got into her car. She kept herself from checking her rearview mirror to see if he took her up on her offer until she was a few blocks from Verdant and was pleased to find his incredibly ostentatious silver car loosely following her mini coop.

They were nearly at her home when she realized that she never checked to see if her townhome had been damaged in the quake and wondered if there was any home for her to come back to. She didn't live in the Glades, her house was far enough from the worst of the dangers but it wasn't so far from the area that there would have been a definite certainty that it was spared by however big the blast radius was. As she got closer she checked the buildings that surrounded her, pleased to see that they were still standing and that there didn't seem to be much damage.

She pulled up to the curb in front of her house and gestured for him to pull into the driveway before her into the overhead parking. She was starting to lose her grip on her exhaustion, causing her to stumble slightly as she got out of her car. She gave Tommy a smile and a mumbled thanks as his hand reached out to her elbow to steady her.

"Do you have a tarp or anything I can use to cover this thing?"

"I don't think so. I could ask my neighbor or something but I don't know if I can hold a conversation right now."

Felicity unlocked the front door and reset her alarm system, relieved at the familiar smell of her home that washed through her. At first glance there didn't seem to be anything out of place aside from some knocked over tchotchkes. "The spare room is the first door to the right up the stairs. As long as you don't open any external doors the alarm won't go off. Kitchen is that way and you're free to anything edible that's left."

They didn't exchange any more words after that both just making their own way to their respectives bed. She just lay down and eventually the past few days just caught up to her and she fell asleep.

When she opened her eyes it was dark and musty and everything around her felt heavy. She tried to move but her body won't cooperate with her at all. It was dark so dark. She had no idea where she was. It was dark enough that she couldn't make out any of her surrounding features.

Dread started to weigh in on her constricting her heart. She tried to call out for someone. Anyone. Anyone that could help her.

But no one was there.

Her breathing came into short bursts, the panic and the weight above her pushing her down.

"Felicity!"

No one was going to find her. She was choking and she felt something wet against her cheeks but she couldn't think. She couldn't breathe.

"Felicity!" The voice rushed to her like rapids of freezing water, pulling her out with a fury.

She sat up gasping, nearly headbutting someone with the suddenness of her movement. "Shit! Watch it."

The voice registered in her head causing her to still. "Tommy?" What was he doing here?

"You were shouting. Scared the crap out of me." She squinted to look at him only to find a blurry dark haired figure in front of her. She reached for her face to find her glasses horribly smudged from sleeping with it on.

She took her glasses off, rubbing the lenses with the cloth that she keeps on her bedside table for something to do not quite wanting to meet his eyes for fear of what he would be able to see there. "Sorry. I… bad dream."

"I figured." His voice, though barely above a whisper, carried through her whole room.

She placed her glasses back on her face, finally able to get a better grip on her surroundings. The late afternoon light was coming through her window, illuminating the forlorn man sitting across from her on her bed. She plopped back down on the bed and scooted to the other side patting the empty space next to her.

He hesitated for a second before stretching out beside her crossing both of his arms below his head. "What now?"

Felicity didn't answer right away, her mind going through the possibilities. Both Moira Queen and Malcolm Merlyn have been very publicly outed as people behind the whole affair and if she was able to find a connection through the Merlyn Global's servers then the government probably would as well and there's also a likelihood that Queen Consolidated would undergo the same treatment for a while.

Then there's the Glades and it's rebuilding which truly takes priority over everything else. But how? Where does a person even start with that?

Two people. Felicity looked to her right, to the man lying beside her, a man that she had only known of until the last twenty four hours and yet she had willingly stripped herself bare to him, exposing the deepest valleys of her psyche and so did he. Their connection was born of adrenaline, resignation, desperation, encompassing grief, and sheer and utter need to do something stupid and reckless and let go of the responsibility that befell them.

They threw their chips into the same bowl and there's a large possibility she's more invested in this than he is. But he was looking at her like she was the one that could keep him from drowning and she couldn't for the life of her, turn away.

"We fix it. However way we could."

Malcolm Merlyn was declared missing soon after the fact. No one knew where he was or what happened to him during what was apparently called "The Undertaking" yet his blonde companion had disclosed the truth to him. His father had fallen in the hands of the closest person that he had to a brother. In truth he didn't know how to take it. He was a bastard and he and Tommy hardly ever saw each other, much less got along. But he was still his father and he was dead.

His father that apparently had killed five hundred and two mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, sisters, brothers, and friends in some act of vengeance for his mother. How was he supposed to react?

It's been a month since that night and everything was still a mess. He was still staying at Felicity's house, both for his sake and hers, although she wouldn't admit to the latter. Merlyn Global is currently closed and under investigation by the FBI and Homeland Security for domestic terrorism and his family Manor had many attempts at being vandalized so he didn't really stay at any of his properties. On the other hand he had to hire a car service to provide trails to some Merlyn properties as well as some high end hotels that changed every night just so that they would not be able to connect him to her, lest he put her in the line of fire for those seeking vengeance for his father. Because he couldn't just leave her.

Felicity was still having nightmares.

It didn't take much to guess what it was about. Often she still woke him up screaming in the middle of the night, clawing at her surroundings as if trying to get free from whatever weight was pressed upon her. There were times where there was a heartbreaking desperation to her voice and that if he couldn't get there fast enough she would scream herself raw. Then there were other nights, which he believed to be worse, wherein she just started hyperventilating and appeared to give up, to surrender to the weight. She didn't want to talk about it, whatever it was that was bothering her, and he didn't press because that wasn't their relationship.

She tried her hand at staying awake all night but there was only so long that Tommy could spend running across the house to the sound of her nightmares trying to figure out where the hell she fell asleep this time. He often had to carry her back to her bed then because she was often still trapped in the lingering nightmare to be able to make it to her bed by herself.

He gave her an ultimatum then. Telling her that she had to at least try to sleep even if it's just for the sake and sanity that he would know where to find her at short notice. In the end Tommy spent more time in her bed than his.

They still started out the night in their own rooms because initially going there to sleep would be so domestic and it just never sat well with them. It felt weird the first time that they tried because it just felt like something that one would do with a spouse or a boyfriend and they could just never put the other in that kind of box. So each night they go their own ways and whenever a nightmare occurs he would run to her room and they would spend the rest of the night talking about anything and everything, from her childhood to his dreams, random thoughts that pop out of their head or their most kept secrets until they both fell asleep again.

There was nothing romantic between them, their one night simply borne out of adrenaline and mounted emotions. They were both still in love with different people and it just wouldn't be fair for either of them. But they managed to forge a unique relationship them. They lacked any boundaries amidst each other both physically and mentally. They both have grown to deeply care for each other built from weathering the storm together for the last few weeks.

It wasn't that they had purposely isolated themselves recently, but the situation did not really make for easy social calls. It led to a certain type of dependency with the two of them. It wasn't that they were pursuing a sexual relationship but they are touchier than most friends. And he has grown to become fiercely protective of her but then again there was just something about her that incited that reaction from people. It definitely seemed that way when he had first met Mr. Diggle.

He tugged lightly at a loose bunch of hair that fell from Felicity's braid. "Are you going to be coming tomorrow?"

They were both at her bed again after another particularly bad nightmare. There was a lull for a while, but as the date grew closer it seemed to pick up it's rate and came more often. At this rate he would be able to hold his own in 60m sprints.

There was unencumbered grief in her eyes. "I don't know if I can."

He took a deep breath, he hated seeing her like this. "It's as much your fault as it is mine Felicity."

"It's not your-"

"Exactly." He cut her off. He scooped her up in his arms and rested his chin atop her head. "Plus I need you there. Even if it's just for you to hack into the soundbooth and execute a perfect diversion so I can get away before I get mobbed."

She chuckled at that. "Tommy after all of the work you and Oliver…" He didn't acknowledge the waiver on her voice at his best friend's name. "...have put into rebuilding the Glades as well as the majority of the funding for the search and rescue as well as temporary housing for the citizens, not to mention the fact that the two of you actually sifted through rubble for a week… I'm pretty sure those pictures of the two of you made it to CNN not to mention every tabloid and gossip magazine because you two getting down and dirty like that…"

"Land your plane Smoak." Tommy chuckled.

She pushed off of him and her eyes met his. "It's just that they don't blame you. Either of you. It's not your fault your parents went all Doctor Evil. They get that. They just lashed out at you in the beginning. And maybe some people still will. But it's not your fault."

He murmured her name as he roughly rubbed a hand across his face. Usually he handled this, her guilt, better. But the memorial ceremony for all of the fallen in the Glades had been weighing on him as well and it was wearing him down. He flopped back on her bed and clenched his fist trying to reign himself in.

"At least you had a hand in trying to stop it, Felicity. I was knocked out and useless." Tommy continued on forcefully, skirting over her attempt at breaking him off. "You deserve to be there more than I do. If it weren't for you then the list of people we would be honoring tomorrow would be twice the size."

He took a deep breath trying to center himself. It's something that has been bothering him for a while now but he kept pushing it back further and further because Felicity was still dealing with her guilt and there was the investigation and the Glades rehabilitation and what the hell he was going to do after and now that it's out he can't push it back in.

"I did nothing Felicity! And I get it! I'm not that crazy superhero vigilante like Oliver who can actually go toe to toe with my dad, who may I add is apparently some ninja archer. When did that even happen? Is there some secret archer training center that I don't know about? Because two people in my life seem to suddenly become quite good at it.

"But that's not the point. The point is I didn't know. I didn't know Felicity! He's been planning this for years and I didn't see it. I knew that mom's death did a number on him but I didn't think that he-"

He took a deep breath trying to battle the constricting feeling in his throat. "He was my father. My father Felicity. How could I have been so blind?"

Silence fell between the two of them once again. During his spiel Felicity had shifted so that her head rested on his shoulder, offering him what comfort she could, and if it wasn't for the fact that he could see Felicity drumming her fingers he would have assumed that she had fallen back to sleep.

He was never fond of the quiet. He felt that he had enough of that in his own home wherein he was always alone and encouraged to be seen and not heard. It was oppressive and smothering. He had always surrounded himself with life and vibrancy, parties, city life, fast cars, and a roar of a jet's engine but here in Felicity's home, with the woman that had the capabilities to talk for hours on end with no signs of stopping, silence was peaceful, a refuge. Maybe because he never felt truly alone in those moments whether it was small contact or the constant thrumming of keys on a keyboard or her tablet, he always knew that she was there with him.

"Okay."

Her whispered words were loud in the silence. "I'll go tomorrow."

Felicity hadn't been back to the foundry ever since that night but she has been visiting it pretty regularly in her dreams and something deep inside her knew that she couldn't show up at the memorial a mess because it wasn't about her. It was about all of the people who were lost in the Undertaking.

She's been standing by the back entrance for the better part of the last hour trying to find the courage to go into the basement of what was once the most popular club in the Glades. She just had to know what would have really happened not the situations that her unconscious mind keeps coming up with.

"Felicity."

She jumped at the voice behind her. A voice that she would know anywhere. She could never get a hold of how he managed to move so quietly especially considering his sheer size and weight.

"If I didn't know any better I would say that you just called me fat." She could hear the smile in his voice, but she couldn't find it in herself to find any humor at the moment.

"How are you Oliver?" She turned to look at him for the first time in weeks. The most that she's seen of him lately was on TV or across a street as he helped shift rubble but she never got the chance to talk to him, because in the real world she was Felicity Smoak, IT Tech of Queen Consolidated, and he was Oliver Queen, billionaire playboy.

He was dressed to the nines in black, probably also on his way to the memorial ceremony as well. From a distance he seemed to be faring well but she knew him better than most people. She could see the guilt in his eyes and the heavy weight that he bore on his shoulders. His mouth was set on a grim line and his stance was more guarded than usual.

"What are you doing here Felicity?" He replied instead. Classic Oliver. He stood a few feet away from her and although his words sound accusing his tone was anything but. It was almost…worried.

She turned away from Oliver's gaze, knowing that her emotions would be out on display for him. She could never truly hide anything from his searching eyes, maybe it's because deep down she didn't really want to. "I haven't been back here since…that night."

"I know."

She looked at him in confusion but he simply shrugged in response. She didn't know when or how often he had come back to the Foundry. As far as she knew there hasn't been a sighting of the Hood since the Undertaking and she prayed that he hadn't been out patrolling without any backup. Just the thought brings a new round of worry through her.

"How bad is it down there?" A part of her didn't want to hear, but she never did take to not knowing well. And it really couldn't be worse than how her nightmares have played out.

Oliver shifted and a brief flash of emotion passed through his face that went by too fast for her to place. "It's not so bad. Dig and I cleared out the basement so that we could get some contractors to work on the structural problems. It's safe down there now. Do you want to go in and see?"

Felicity nodded but stayed rooted to her spot. She wanted to go. She needed to go. But she couldn't seem to make herself move an inch. She felt his hand on her shoulder, making her start. He didn't make a habit of touching her, well he never instigated any kind of physical contact really, with anyone. So she was thankful of the support that he was offering.

"I'll be with you every step of the way. I promise."

He was giving her the choice, willing to let her go either way she chooses. And she was grateful for that option. "Okay."

His hand slid from her shoulder to her back, leaving a searing trail across her back, gently leading her towards the entry to the foundry. She stepped closer towards him, seeking refuge in the comfort that he provided. She always felt safe with him. Most people saw him as dangerous, some still believe that he was a cold hearted killer. She knew that he has blood on his hands, too much. But she never felt wary of him. With him she knew that nothing wrong could happen.

The basement was devoid of anything beyond some spare tools and hard hats. Gone were his table of arrows and his box of island stuff. Gone were his salmon ladder, the bane of her libido, and the array of training mats on the floor. And gone was her desk and her precious computers.

"Where are my babies?" She whispered, almost scared of his answer.

She let out a sigh of relief when she saw Oliver's small smirk. "They're safe, for the most part." But the dread resurfaced when a sudden dark look landed on his face. "The monitors and the keyboard got crushed with some chunks of concrete. But your servers were saved by the metal casing."

"We'll have to buy you a new chair." She felt her knees buckle at the implication. She could have died if she had waited for him as she had originally planned. If she and Tommy had stayed there any longer than they did. Her vision started to get spotty and her chest started to hurt. How long would it have taken? A few more minutes? A few more hours? All of the sudden the black spots got replaced by a bright blue.

"Breathe. Felicity! Breathe. Come on now. In. Out. In…"

Breathe? What? She took a deep inhale feeling the sharp pang in her chest. When did she stop? She closed her eyes and just followed his lead, deep breath in, deep breath out, trying to get herself back into a regular pattern.

"I'm glad you got out when you did Felicity." He whispered. Her breaths began to even out and she began to realize that his hands hand a tight grip on her arms and that his face was merely inches from hers.

Oliver's face was pained and his eyes were searching her face. She reached out a hand, wanting nothing than to touch him, to help him relax but stopped herself before she could. That wasn't her place. So she just smiled at him, trying to reassure him that she was fine, and that it's not his fault.

They stood there for a while, simply letting the moment be. He never took his hands from her arms and she tried to stamp down the feelings that she felt from the small contact and his proximity.

She cleared her throat and stepped back slightly, eyeing her surroundings seeing a ghost of their former base and wondering what will happen with their group from this moment forward. Even though she hasn't really spoken to him she knew that Oliver must have taken the fall of half of the Glades personally, because that was just who he was.

He straightened up and let her go. "We should go. The memorial is going to be starting soon."

They were halfway out of the room when Felicity stopped in her tracks, causing Oliver to do the same. She took once last glance at the empty space behind them, waiting to be rebuilt. She knew that it might take a while and a lot of effort for her to be completely comfortable in the basement again. But she'll manage. Somehow.

She turned and levelled him with the most determined gaze that she could muster. "We're not done here."

And she meant it. They still had to talk about the Undertaking and how they were going to move forward as a team if there was still one. They had a good thing going here. They helped people that needed it and they made a difference. She wasn't going to give up on that. This was going to be how she moved forward. How she would atone for her mistake of letting the second device past her. And deep down she knew that Oliver needed to continue on as well.

She wasn't going to give up on this. Not while she still had any fight left.

Upcoming: [Part III - Recoil]

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